Selecting the best wine to have with Chinese food can be very tricky because there are so many different styles of Chinese cuisine. The Eight Culinary Traditions/Regions of Chinese cuisine are as follows: Lu (Shandong), Chuan (Sichuan), Hui (Anhui), Yue (Guangdong), Min (Fujian), Xiang (Hunan), Su (Jiangsu) and Zhe (Zhejiang). These styles are distinctive from one another due to factors such as available resources, climate, geography, history, cooking techniques and lifestyle.

Chinese Cuisine

In Jamaica the most popular style is Yue cuisine (Guangdong cuisine), also known as Cantonese cuisine. The Cantonese techniques of cooking include stir-frying, frying, stewing and braising. The taste features pure delicacy, freshness, tenderness, and crispness. Sweet and sour dishes originated in this region. In this part of the world, when people refer to Chinese food, Cantonese style is generally what they are talking about.

The other popular Chinese cuisine in Jamaica is Chuan (Sichuan, Szechwan). Szechwan cuisine is famous for its spicy, tongue-numbing and heavily seasoned flavour, resulting from liberal use of garlic and chili peppers, as well as the unique flavour of the Sichuan peppercorn. Hot and Sour soup and Twice Cooked Pork are familiar dishes from this area.

Ideal wine pairing

Deciding which wine to have with meals seems to be a very big concern for most wine lovers and so many books have attempted to help make this decision simple. Ideally these two styles of Chinese cuisine will call for different styles of wines to make an ideal pairing. When dealing with so many flavours on the table my personal food and wine pairing objective is to simply avoid a clash. This is when each individual component tastes great, but together they taste horrible. Food with sugar and pepper are the difficult ones. Here is what the experts suggest:

* Pairing wines and foods with similar dominant features is generally harmonious

* Match acidic foods with high acid wines

* Match sweet food with sweet wines

* Match foods that are tangy with tangy, smoky with oaky, dark red meat with dark red wine

* Match spicy or peppery food with light, low tannic reds, rosés or slightly sweet wines

* Match salty foods with sweet or high acid wines

* Match fatty and oily foods with high acid wines

* Match or contrast the flavour characteristics of the wine and food

* Avoid sweet food and dry wines

The Pairings Challenge

While a number of challenges exist in creating the ideal wine and food pairing, the consumer’s personal tastes and preferences will always override any expert’s pairing suggestions. Some don’t like red wines or some don’t like white wines and nothing you do will convince them to change.

Jade Garden Experiment

The Jamaica Observer Food Awards judges visited the iconic Jade Garden Restaurant this week to help the storied establishment begin its 28th year in business. We had mainly traditional Cantonese fare and it was finger-licking delicious. In discussion with our friends at Wray & Nephew, I selected six wines from their portfolio to have some fun with. Three were the ideal textbook pairings for the menu and the other three, while great wines, were included to provoke discussion. To my pleasant surprise, great wines trumped ideal pairings!

Next week we share the details.

Christopher Reckord – Businessman, Entrepreneur & Wine Enthusiast. Send your questions and comments to creckord@gmail.com. Follow us on twitter: @Reckord